Catch of the day

I just looked up from my desk and caught a glint of the shiniest turquoise

 Our resident but elusive kingfisher was sitting on the jetty under a burst of pussy willow

For a matter of seconds I was captivated by his iridescent plumage

Then he darted over the pond

Past the bank of narcissi. Gone

My Tiny Plot

Lovely mention of my cookbook over at mytinyplot. Have a good rummage around this delightful blog- gorgeous photos, great gardening tips and an infectiously sunny outlook on life! 
It’s thanks to Gillian that I potted up some beetroot in the autumn, tucked them away in the greenhouse over winter and lo and behold I’ve now got dapper, purple veined leaves to toss into salads. 

My lettuce seedlings are a mere inch high but with sunny days like today it won't be long before they're ready for the salad bowl too.

I can't wait!

Just booked tickets to see 'David Hockney RA: A Bigger Picture' in a few weeks time. 

Since watching Andrew Marr’s documentary of the exhibition I feel as though I am permanently immersed in one of Hockney’s canvasses. Rural Suffolk, where we live, bears so many resemblances to H’s East Yorkshire... from little hedge-lined lanes that bleach to lilac in the sunlight, and blasts of luminous oilseed rape blossom to dramatic silhouettes of winter copses against heavy skies. 

And the sky couldn’t have been heavier for the past couple of days. Even the snowdrops refused to shake out their skirts, and the chickens, hunched under the bay tree for shelter, seem to have shrunk to half their normal plumped up size, sodden feathers clinging to their backs like ill fitting raincoats. 

Last night a lustrous full moon painted deep indigo shadows across the garden. This morning a sunny sky washes the landscape with Californian colour. And my feathered friends have resumed their perky perambulations. I should really shut up and dash outside with my paints. Hockney would.

Shop locally

As much as I enjoy the postman handing me a fat envelope rattling with seeds, even more personal is a visit to my local emporium ‘The Handyman’. Ollie cheerfully weighs out my onion sets while I toss peas and beans into crackly brown paper bags. Along with three bags of seed potatoes I am optimistic that I can feed my family for months from my haul. In fact looking at the diverse potpourri of stock on the shelves I need hardly shop anywhere else, ever again.

They’ve got pellets to feed the chickens,

pans to boil an egg,

wool to knit a warm balaclava,

paint to decorate the bedroom,

nails to secure broken roof tiles,

a china robin to sit on the mantlepiece,

a broom to sweep away the cobwebs,

candles for powercuts, 

and a purple wheelbarrow to push it all home in.

But no chocolate.

Longer days make for happy hens

Saffy rushed past me this morning... Chuuck dk dk dk dk.. chuuck dk dk dk dk!  

Translates as - I’ve just laid my first egg! 
Not quite in time for Shrove tuesday pancakes but there again a chuck’s first egg deserves to be savoured perfectly poached, not whisked up with flour, sizzled in fat and drenched in lemon.

Roll on breakfast.